where i belong

Posted on July 10, 2014 by Kate Motaung

It’s Five-Minute Friday again, and this week we’re over at Crystal Stine’s place with the word BELONG.

Ready … GO.

It’s pushing a trolley through a Cape Town Pick n’ Pay and asking where to find the ketchup instead of the to-MAH-to sauce, calculating the exchange rate between dollars and rands, and wondering how many millileters are in an ounce. It’s signing the credit credit card slip and being asked if that’s really your surname, and then a quizzical look before, “…Why?” It’s answering with an American twang why you have a Tswana surname, and still being unsure whether the cashier believes you. It’s climbing into the driver’s seat on the right hand side of the car, rolling down your window a crack to tip the car guard with a five rand coin before stepping on the clutch to drive your stick shift in the left lane.

It’s going back “home” to the States and realizing your twang has been sanded down over the years, softened and eroded after a decade abroad, and having local natives ask you where you’re from.

It’s that nagging awareness that you don’t really fit here or there, and then the subsequent, beautiful freedom of eyes being opened and knowing that

we’re not supposed to.

As long as we’re living in the in-between, in the already-not yet, in the waiting room between the fall and redemption, we’re not supposed to.

“All I know is I’m not home yet

This is not where I belong

Take this world and give me Jesus

This is not where I belong …”

~ Where I Belong, by Building 429:

For a great series on belonging, visit Bronwyn Lea’s 31 Days of Belonging over here.

(P.S. I created a Five-Minute Friday board on Pinterest .. it’s over here if you’d like to check it out!)

attitudes and accents

Posted on October 18, 2013 by Kate Motaung

When I stepped onto that plane just shy of 21 years old, little did I know just how much things would change.

I was saying goodbye to the only town I’d ever known – a predominantly Dutch, middle-class, American suburb – and walking into the bustling, diverse metropolis of Cape Town.

Forget trying to fit in … the moment I opened my mouth, my tongue betrayed me, and my twangy American accent stuck out like a sore thumb.

The irony is that now, after spending over ten years living amongst South Africans, the harshness of my American accent has been sanded down, and what remains is often not recognizable to those in my own hometown.

My South African husband, our three kids and I recently moved from Cape Town to the States. Upon our arrival, people would strike up a conversation with me, and after a few minutes pose the question, “Where are you from?”

I’m from here! I’d want to scream. Really, I am! It might not sound like it, but I’m one of you!

If you’ve ever lived in a foreign context for any length of time, you’ll know what I mean.

Maybe it wasn’t your accent that changed, but I’m quite confident that some part of you did. Not only that, but the place you left behind changed in your absence, too.

Life goes on. People and places bend and shift and progress.

The town that once was the only place I’d known for 21 years is now different. People have moved, gotten married, had babies. Some have died. New restaurants have gone up, others have been torn down.

In South Africa, I did my best to make our house a home, and yet even after ten years, the myricad of cultures were still foreign to me.

I didn’t quite belong.

Moving back ‘home,’ has made me realize I don’t quite belong here, either. A handful of people are kind enough to ask what it’s like in South Africa, but often it’s just out of common courtesy, or to make conversation. And to be honest, even my best efforts to describe the beauty will never do it justice. They will never really know what it was like to live there.

This is what it’s like when we’re living in the in-between.

And as long as we’re between the fall and glory, between creation and the final redemption, we’ll never really feel as though we belong.

We’re not supposed to.

In John 15:19, Jesus says, “If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world.”

We’re called to be in the world, but not of it.

We’re sojourners on this earth, wanderers, not really fitting in until Christ returns and we will be welcomed into His eternal fold forever.

This is the tension of the “already-not yet” kingdom.

True, if we are believers, then we already belong to Him. He is in us and we are in Him – and yet we’re not with Him as we desire to be.

I may be a U.S. citizen and I may have permanent residency in South Africa – but, by the grace of God, my citizenship is in heaven.

If you’re a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ and yet in the day-to-day grind of life you feel that you don’t belong – don’t fret.

You’re not supposed to.

Be glad when your Christian accent clashes with the voices of the world, and count it a privilege to belong to Him alone.

This post appeared yesterday in a blog swap with the lovely Bronwyn Lea. If you haven’t stopped by Bronwyn’s blog to check out her series, 31 Days of Belonging, you can do so by clicking here.

where the heart is – a guest post

Posted on October 17, 2013 by Kate Motaung

Today it is my great privilege to swap blogs with the delightful Bronwyn Lea. Bronwyn and I met at church in Cape Town, and I have had the utmost respect for her since the very beginning of our friendship. She is a committed Christian, a dedicated wife and mother, a deep thinker, a gifted communicator, an encouraging friend … the list could go on and on. As Bronwyn and her husband have been living in the States for the past several years, we now have even more in common than we did before.

The following post was written by Bronwyn, who has been taking part in 31 Days madness on her own blog, writing on the topic of 31 Days of Belonging. I encourage you to check out the rest of her posts by clicking here. You can also find her on Twitter @bronleatweets.

I counted the miles on my way back home:

Boarding the airplane in Amsterdam (9,000 miles to go) – still not home.

Touching down in Los Angeles (300 miles to go) – still not home.

Touching down in Sacramento (15 miles to go) – still not home.

Stepping off the escalator into the arms of my baby boys – home.

Home, even though I still had 15 miles to go.

Home, even though I was in a dirty airport and was still a car ride away from being able to sink my feet into slippers and raid the snack cupboard without guilt.

I wish my brain had the capacity to remember those 10 seconds forever: the wild, ungainly loping of my 16 month old, moving his stout little legs as quickly as he could across the arrivals hall shouting “Mama! Mama!” I wish I could freeze-frame the giddy glee of my 3 year old, so overcome with excitement that he lay on the floor spinning in circles. Or the delighted, relieved, shared-joy-smile on my husband’s face.

If home is where the heart is, I was home. Nevermind my stuff, nevermind my geographical coordinates: these were my people, to whom my heart belonged.

In the days that have followed, I keep recalling that scene in the airport, and the intense feeling of home-ness and belonging I felt. If the feeling of being home has to do with our identity-in-relationship, then that makes sense of a few things for me:

Why church can feel like “home”, no matter where we are in the world. I find identity in my relationship with God and other believers: He has made His home in us, and we find our rest in Him, together.

Why, as a South African living in the States, I find it hard to answer the question “are you going home?” when I travel. There are people I love and belong to on both sides of the Atlantic. In a sense, whenever I travel, I am going “home”. Similarly, with loved ones always separated from where we are in the world – there is always a sense of not being fully “at home”. Something is missing. People are missing.

Why, despite strong feelings of attachment and belonging to people in this life, I still long to be Home with God – to find myself in the ultimate place of belonging.

If our feeling of home has to do with identity-in-relationship, that explains why (despite the wonderful relationships I have here), I still long to be home with God and His family. Only then, on that Day, in the new heavens and the new earth, will we-and-all-we-hold-dear be united together. On that Day, we will see Him face to face. On that Day, we will finally belong. On that Day, we will be home.

And until then, we belong to our loved ones with a longing reserved for eternity. We yearn for it in our hearts. And in airport arrivals halls, we can almost touch it. It’s a taste of the homecoming joy to come.